Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

“woke” is the new caravan.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

We will not go back.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

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Archives for 2009

The Problem With the GOP

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Seriously, what party does RNC chairman Michael Steele think he is running:

Do you think homosexuality is a choice?

Oh, no. I don’t think I’ve ever really subscribed to that view, that you can turn it on and off like a water tap. Um, you know, I think that there’s a whole lot that goes into the makeup of an individual that, uh, you just can’t simply say, oh, like, “Tomorrow morning I’m gonna stop being gay.” It’s like saying, “Tomorrow morning I’m gonna stop being black.”

Does he not understand, the eight remaining members of the Log Cabin Republicans and the remaining closeted members of the Lavender Bund notwithstanding, this kind of thinking is simply not allowed in the Republican party? Additionally, he upset the pro-life crowd by correctly observing that right now, by law, women have the choice to carry their pregnancy to term or abort it.

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Riddle Me This

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So Madoff has submitted his plea, will be sent to jail immediately and sentenced on the 16th of June, and everyone on television keeps saying some variation of the following:

“Madoff faces a 150 year sentence, which, for a 70 year old man, is effectively a life sentence.”

Considering life expectancy is somewhere in the 70’s, isn’t 150 years in jail a life sentence for anyone, not just a seventy year old?

Also, isn’t the more important aspect of the Madoff case the number of people involved in the conspiracy? This wasn’t just one guy. There were all the pople in his office, all the people he did business with, all the bankers who held the funds and got their cut for every transaction, the accountants who didn’t notice anything. When does that get discussed and investigated.

Or do we send Madoff off to jail, pay out the victims though the government insurance fund (my bad, SIPC is not government), and just pretend it was one guy who did all this?

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Stop Picking on Corporate America

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This just floored me:

“When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don’t understand it,” Dimon said in his speech. “I would ask a lot of our folks in government to stop doing it because I think it’s hurting our country.”

That is Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan Chase. Yes, the vilification of corporate America is just mean-spiritedness. It has nothing to do with you clowns spending millions to have the markets deregulated and for laws to be changed to your benefit (including the Bankruptcy laws). It has nothing to do with once you got what you wanted, you guys gambled away billions of dollars on reckless bets, all the while charging exorbitant fees and padding your own pockets. It has nothing to do with the fact that last year, while running your company into a ditch, you earned were paid $55 million.

It has nothing to do with the fact that after you all had run the financial sector into the ground, you then came to the taxpayers for money to ease the credit market that you had screwed up, and then turned around and spent the money acquiring new assets. It has nothing to do with the fact that you guys took the TARP money and immediately began planning on how to spend it fighting card check. It has nothing to do with the fact that corporate America lobbied to not pay the premiums for FDIC and then didn’t for the past ten years. It has nothing to do with the fact that after receiving trillions of dollars, you and your buddies flipped a lid over a paltry sum being spent shoring up mortgages for homeowners. It has nothing to do with the fact that as soon as this mess is fixed, after trillions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted, you all will begin to fiercely lobby against any structural changes to the system.

So stop it, America. Stop picking on Jamie Dimon. Stop picking on corporate America.

*** Update ***

I should note that I read this story last night right before seeing this headline– Hersh: ‘Executive assassination ring’ reported directly to Cheney.

I have to admit, for a minute, before I read the Hersh piece, I thought Cheney might be on to something.

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Give Me A Break

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Without question, the silliest portion of this Charles Freeman debate is occurring after the nominee has withdrawn and certain folks are pretending they had absolutely nothing to do with the assault on his character.

I will just put it this way. If you honestly thought that the folks at the Weekly Standard were quoting Human Rights Watch because of a deep concern for human rights, you are dumber than I ever was at the height of my kool-aid days.

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Zombie lies never die

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No one could have predicted that former Bushies would use a discredited Charles Krauthammer piece to bolster their anti-stem cell arguments:

A few days before Obama announced he was abolishing Bush-era limits on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, Bush supporters who frequently appear on TV received an e-mail from an adviser saying: “I wanted to send you the following two documents on President Bush’s record on stem cell research: 1. a Bush White House fact sheet on President Bush’s record of advancing stem cell research in ethical, responsible ways and 2. a November 2007 Washington Post column by Charles Krauthammer, ‘Stem Cell Vindication.’”

Here’s what two scientists wrote a few days after Krauthammer’s column appeared:

Since 1998, many strategies for addressing sanctity-of-life concerns have been pursued. While commendable, these efforts remain preliminary, and none so far has suggested a magic bullet. In the same way, the recent tandem advances in the United States and by Shinya Yamanaka’s team in Japan are far from being a Holy Grail, as Charles Krauthammer inaccurately described them. Though potential landmarks, these studies are only a first step on the long road toward eventual therapies.

Krauthammer’s central argument — that the president’s misgivings about embryonic stem cell research inspired innovative alternatives — is fundamentally flawed, too.

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What is it about religion and sexual abuse?

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From today’s Times:

Roman Catholic and Orthodox Jewish officials in New York are mounting an intense lobbying effort to block a bill before the State Legislature that would temporarily lift the statute of limitations for lawsuits alleging the sexual abuse of children.

[….]

“We believe this bill is designed to bankrupt the Catholic Church,” said Dennis Poust, spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference, a group representing the bishops of the state’s eight dioceses. He said that Cardinal Egan and Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn visited Albany this week to voice their opposition, and that a statewide network of Catholic parishioners had bombarded lawmakers via e-mail.

But while the Catholic Church is leading the opposition, in recent months a loose coalition of disparate groups has also joined the effort. They include leaders of the Hasidic and Sephardic Jewish institutions in Brooklyn, which could face equally costly abuse claims. The New York Civil Liberties Union and the criminal defense bar oppose lifting statutes of limitation as unfair to the accused, who must defend themselves against claims of transgressions decades old.

Seriously, what is it with religion and sexual abuse?

There are plenty of private groups out there that deal with children all the time — schools, the boy scouts, sports programs, summer camps: why is it that of these, the only groups with an overriding fear of this bill are religious groups?

This is not meant as a Hitch-style anti-religion slam (I think it’s completely unfair that Catholic priests, many of whom are the most decent people you would ever want to meet, are all seen as pedophiles by many). I’d just like to know an explanation.

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The soft bigotry of lowered expectations

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Let’s get this out of the way.

It’s not my place to say this, but you know it, I know it, John knows it, and all the circle-jerkers at the Atlantic know this too, despite what they say: there’s no way Ross Douthat would score a New York Times gig if he weren’t a conservative.

There’s some shit you just shouldn’t eat and I’m not eating this.

Sorry, folks, but no one wins from this kind of blatant quota-ism

Update: If there is a God, we will all rot in hell if we do not criticize Marc Ambinder for saying this:

I think Ross is the sharpest, most innovative heterodox thinker of his generation, left or right.

Update #2: It’s possible I’m overreacting, given that they’ve already got MoDo. But still, Douthat’s stunning lack of accomplishment makes this a choice that eats away at what little credibility newspapers have left.

Update #3: The Village Voice has a run-down of silly things Ross has written. Now, for the most part, I think that’s unfair. Any blogger will have written all kinds of silly things and many of the things they cite just aren’t that bad. The problem with this pick is not what Douthat has done, it’s what he hasn’t done (worked as a reporter or distinguished himself in any way). That said, this is really asinine:

Last July, I argued that Louisiana’s David Vitter ought to resign his office after he more or less admitted to having frequented prostitutes. I stand by that position. However, if David Vitter – having conspicuously failed to resign – were to face off in a Presidential race against Barack Obama, I would be inclined to hold my nose and vote for Vitter. I don’t think there’s necessarily a contradiction here, any more than I think there would be a contradiction for a culturally-conservative Democrat to simultaneously believe that Bill Clinton ought to have resigned over the Lewinsky affair while declining to regret having voted for Clinton over Bob Dole in ’96. Regretting the passing of a particular moral standard does not require one to always vote as if that standard were still in place.

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